I slow down and let the guy slip in front of me. Jocasta rewards me with a little serene smile. ‘Exercising restraint towards other road users can be a very pleasurable thing.’ She gives another Buddha-like smile. ‘Not that virtue needs any reward. It brings its own reward.’ In the rear-vision mirror I can see my own face. I can’t take much more of this. The car, for a start, has run out of sick bags.

Mind you, Jocasta is not the only one who is suggestible. I’ve got the same problem. Thursday and I’m halfway through an Evelyn Waugh book and am behaving like a floppy-haired aristocrat. ‘Dinner, old chaps,’ I yell to the old chaps. I tighten my cravat in front of the mirror, then hasten to the table. ‘It’s pretty good tuck tonight, by all accounts,’ I say to no one in particular, the butler being unaccountably absent.

Jocasta, meanwhile, is getting into some heavy-grade Dashiell Hammett and is draped over the kitchen bench like a trash-talking blonde bombshell, looking sensational. ‘What’s a guy like you doing with a dame like me?’ she purrs, uncrossing and then crossing her shapely legs. ‘I’m nothing but a pile of leaves that just blew from one gutter to another.’

The thought strikes me: if I weren’t a homosexual Brit with a teddy bear obsession, I’d really go for her.

Friday I walk in, wearing a pair of blue chinos, my muscles clearly outlined again my Buck Brothers shirt, a stain of sweat across my chest. I’ve been reading a lot of Pete Dexter, and I’m looking forward to sharing a meal with my woman. ‘You are one gorgeous babe,’ I tell her, to which she replies: ‘I am alive—I guess—but how cold—I grow.’

I make myself a pledge: tomorrow I’ll burn all her Emily Dickinson.

Saturday, I’ve shifted to a Tony Parsons book and stagger in, full of confused but rather delightful male energy. Plus a bottle of wine. Jocasta’s been reading the Sex and the City book—the one I thoughtfully put in her briefcase the night before. She commandeers the wine and pours two glasses. I wrap an arm around her and nuzzle closer, talking in an amusing, snaggish way about our life together. This, I tell her, is the real us: me charming her with bon mots and little self-deprecating asides; her laughing girlishly, while slowly removing her clothing.

It’s taken some work, and a little subterfuge, but finally we are momentarily united. I lead her to the bedroom, grateful that we are both at last on the same page.

When Sunday dawns the atmosphere has chilled. I’ve only just awoken after the frenzied delights of the night before, but I can see Jocasta is already reading. Inwardly I groan: it’s Tolstoy. Even worse: Sunday is a pretty busy day—we’ve got to do the shopping, clean the house and take our two sons to their soccer matches. I cannot imagine the combination with Tolstoy will be a good one.

I ask her if she’s enjoying the book, but she shooshes me. She says she’s sick of having her brain full of the trivia of this family. ‘Everyone else seems to manage to concentrate on one thing, so I’m concentrating on Tolstoy.’

It is a worrying development. For a start, the Tolstoy is very long. Even worse, its philosophical tone can stimulate far too much questioning in a person.

Jocasta swings herself out of bed, her eyes fixed to the book, and wanders out to the back porch.